Capital Punishment2
The question as to whether the state has the right to execute a person found guilty of murder has been debated at length for decades. As with the subject of abortion, it is one of the most controversial topics of discussion in our country today. According to the website religious tolerance.org. about 60 to 80% of American adults say they want to retain capital punishment ( 2). In fact, there are only 12 states that have chosen not to enact the death penalty since the ruling of the Supreme Court in 1976 that said it was constitutionally permissible to have capital punishment (Bonner 1). This strikes me as being rather odd since a large number of those same people claim to be Christians and the main thrust of Christianity is love and forgiveness, not vengeance. At the same time, a number of Christians are opposed to abortion, but are in favor of the death penalty. This belief does not make sense to me; if the life of the unborn is considered precious, then all life should be considered precious, including those who have allegedly committed terrible crimes. Opponents of the death penalty believe that the death penalty is a form of cruel and unusual punishment, is racially biased, can often times be m
When you make a man or a woman sit for years on death row, not knowing from one day to the next if they will live or die, then I feel that this is cruel and unusual punishment. As I stated before, the majority of murders are not preplanned, so how can they be prevented? This opinion is substantiated by Mr. Fortunately, with the discovery of DNA testing, innocent men have been proven innocent after spending years in prison for a crime they haven't committed. I feel that if a person is deemed to be a threat to society then he should be removed from society and not be permitted to live in society. Innocent people have been convicted of crimes that they haven't committed and common sense would have to have you believe that there have been people executed for crimes they haven't committed. However, the problem is that a story told on the television or in the newspapers does not always tell both sides of the story - sometimes they don't know both sides - and often times a person is tried and convicted by the press before he even goes to trial. In other words, murder is murder, whether it be by an individual or by the state. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. People just want to be rid of these killers so they can feel safe again. Some people would argue that with our system of appeals this could not happen, but it has happened and continues to happen. Simpson been a black man of average or below average means in the United States, he would never have been acquitted. The next argument that proponents of the death penalty will espouse is that the death penalty is a deterrent to future murders. According to human rights activist Stephen Bright, "Life is the most fundamental human right there is, the death penalty is like torture - it's beyond the pale. This brings me to my next argument in opposition to the death penalty, the possibility that an innocent person may be condemned to death and be executed for a crime that he has not committed.
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Acceptance Essays
